An Overview

An informative American weekly podcast is ‘The Disciplined Investor’ by Andrew Horowitz. The style of presentation is, well, American. However, most weeks the guest speaker is worth a listen.

The last episode included Harry S Dent Jr. His new book, ‘Demographic Cliff’, predicts a big drop in the share market sometime between mid 2014 and late 2016. I like Dent’s arguments, however, he comes in for bad press saying he is good at selling books rather than good at stock market predictions. So you have to make-up your own mind.

Conversely, reading Peter Lynch, arguably the most successful fund manager in recent times, he says he was not able to predict the market. He didn’t let this concern him overly. He just found great companies at great prices and invested in them.

I have found my own style of trading alter. As I embrace both arguments I find that I trade shorter term, generally of a few weeks. I also keep a balance of finding both long and short trades. This is because I spread bet rather than invest.

For investors, the Motely Fool proverb ‘to double your profits, just double your investment time’ is a good one. My recommendations are good for investments but are more geared towards spread betting.

My principles remain the same. Based on my charts (or technicals as it is called), I trade long in companies that provide good fundamentals. It is said that fundamentals don’t count if trading shorter term. But I like to have both the charts and the fundamentals agreeing.

The starter Slow Trader fund I mentioned last week now has £5,000. This should begin in a few weeks and I intend to blog, where I can, simply when I’m taking a long or short position. This is putting my money where my mouth is! You can follow these positions through your personal fund.